While it is interesting as a signal of the newsfeed’s evolution – it is represents the larger theme of Facebook relationship, promotion, and integration of applications (and the larger application ecosystem). Obviously Facebook has always been supportive of the ecosystem – from Zynga & LOLapps (gaming) to Spotify & Pinterest (content) to Wantful & ShoeDazzle (off-Facebook commerce), etc. In fact, yesterday’s news was that “visitors from Facebook accounted for 1.1 billion visits to iOS and HTML5 apps, meaning an average of more than 6 visits per user.”

The emergence of Facebook’s Timeline, Open Graph and the proliferation of applications atop the platform (mobile, newsfeed, ticker, etc) – Facebook relationship with applications is evolving: